Derailing the Pickering nomination

By By Buddy Bynum / editor
Nov. 2, 2003
Barring some unforeseen development and anything can happen in politics President Bush's nomination of Judge Charles Pickering to a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has been effectively killed by Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Their rejection of such an outstanding jurist and exceptional human being is surely regrettable, but it says more about the Democrats than it does about the judge.
Pickering evidently was too conservative, too Christian, too pro-life, too Southern and too Republican to suit the tastes of the Democrat minority in the Senate. The fact that Pickering is a highly intelligent, fair-minded judge and an honorable man with an honest belief in the American system got lost in the political shuffle.
Using an effective parliamentary tool called a filibuster, Democrats mounted a two-year campaign to stop the Pickering nomination to the appeals court. And it has apparently worked; Republicans in the Senate were six votes shy of the 60 necessary to break the filibuster.
No direct vote
Importantly, as the 54-to-43 vote showed, a majority of senators would likely have voted to confirm Pickering in a direct vote. One Pickering supporter was said to be absent, which would put the vote precisely at what U.S. Sen. Trent Lott said it would be.
Due to the filibuster, however, Pickering's nomination never got to a direct up or down vote.
My dictionary defines the word filibuster as "the use of irregular or obstructive tactics by a member of a legislative assembly to prevent the adoption of a measure."
The judge watched the Senate vote on C-SPAN from his home in the Jones County community of Hebron and would not discuss whether he will withdraw his name from consideration to the panel that hears appeals of cases from U.S. District Courts in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Technically, since there's been no direct vote, his nomination is still pending.
But the political reality is that Republicans in the Senate are ensnared in a classic political trap: They hold a majority of seats but not enough to guarantee control of the agenda. Until they achieve the magic number of 60, they won't have a real majority. The same would be true if Democrats held such a slight edge.
The whole of American politics is based on a two-party system that is sometimes jostled by popular fringe movements. Remember H. Ross Perot? The American system has built-in mechanisms for protecting the minority's interests and obstructing the majority's interests.
Low point
Lott went a bit further with comments after the Senate vote last Thursday.
The filibuster in the hands of the all-politics, all-the-time Democrats intent on mischief-making is a dangerous weapon indeed. Judge Charles Pickering is just its latest victim.